Divorce me I'm done serving you (Ayla) novel Chapter 697

Max had been there for most of the important moments in Troy's life. He also knew that neither Draven nor Troy was capable of making Ayla genuinely happy.

Staking his claim now, while the two brothers were at each other's throats, would shut them both up. The anger would redirect toward him instead.

He wasn't afraid of that. And with Ayla standing right there, neither of them would dare make things worse for themselves.

Consider it doing her a small favor.

Troy took several seconds to process it. The whole thing felt absurd.

He and Draven had torn each other apart, and Ayla hadn't cared. And right under his nose, she had moved on to Max.

When the hell had Max started planning this?

Anger wasn't quite the right word for what he felt. His first coherent thought was that he looked like a fool, not because Draven had beaten him, but because reality had. Ayla had.

He had been fighting the wrong person the entire time.

Draven was the enemy he'd carried since childhood. But winning Ayla had nothing to do with Draven. It never had. The only person Troy should have been paying attention to was Ayla herself.

When Draven took the children, Troy had panicked and fixated on the confrontation, wanting to handle it quietly, retrieve them without Ayla ever finding out.

If Troy had thought clearly, the moment he confirmed it was Draven, he should have gone straight to Ayla. On this, they were on the same side. The children belonged to both of them.

Instead, his arrogance had led him straight to the worst possible choice. Again.

The gunshot wound was draining him. He didn't have the energy to match the size of his rage, and that made everything worse. The fury was still there, vast and consuming. He wanted to put a knife in Max.

Max had actually done this to him.

Troy had spent his whole life expecting the world to arrange itself around him. That was what arrogance looked like from the inside. Unwilling to bend, certain of his own rightness, careless with people who cared about him. Nobody with a clear head would choose to love a man like that forever.

Troy had no real capacity for intimacy. Intimacy required mutual respect, recognition, presence. He had none of those things.

"Troy, if it wasn't me, it would have been someone else. There's no reason to be this shocked." Max's tone was almost gentle. "You love Ayla, right? You want her to be happy. She's happy with me. I can give her that."

Then, with complete sincerity, he continued, "I'm not stealing your woman. I'm doing you a favor. You should be congratulating us."

Herman had once remarked that Max had a rare gift for getting inside people's heads. Draven, watching from where he stood, found himself agreeing. He could picture exactly how those words were landing on Troy.

But he wasn't really a bystander here.

Did Ayla actually have feelings for Max?